Dan Peleg

Dan Peleg was a senior Israeli Mossad officer during the 1950s and 1960s. He worked for Jacob Shimoni and with Maya (his occasional lover), and he supervised the recruitment of new Mossad operatives through several tests, including having them go to the wrong address before finding him, quizzing them on the key figures and the weaponry of rival countries, and having them identify spies in a crowd. Peleg twice rejected Eli Cohen's application for service before finally recruiting him in 1959, fearing that his eagerness to serve would be his downfall. While Cohen served as an undercover operative abroad from 1961 to 1965, Peleg took care of his wife Nadia and her children, and Maya believed that Peleg was falling in love with Nadia, as Peleg even bought groceries for Nadia and stayed over her house. He claimed that he was Eli's coworker as an equipment buyer for the militray, but Eli's cover story imploded in 1964 as his wife grew highly suspicious of his activities. In January 1965, Cohen was captured by the Syrian government after they intercepted his Morse code signals back to Mossad, and he was executed in May despite Peleg and Nadia's efforts to secure his release. Even after Cohen's death, Peleg continued to recruit and train new Mossad agents.